


Tempting the Serpent

by Fierceawakening



Series: Sultai Crossover AU [1]
Category: Magic: The Gathering, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Gen, Humanized
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 06:33:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3317579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fierceawakening/pseuds/Fierceawakening
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crossover fic featuring TFP Megatron and Starscream in Magic: the Gathering's latest plane, Tarkir. I was recalling that Starscream was designed to resemble a cobra, and jokingly thought he would make a glorious naga. Next thing I knew, this fic happened. </p><p>Megatron is a young, rising star among the Sultai humans, despite their oppression at the hands of the nagas. His activities have attracted the attentions of the one naga so power-hungry he might just be willing to make an alliance...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tempting the Serpent

**Author's Note:**

> I'm playing a little fast and loose with continuity here. Notably, Megatron's had his dealings with Unicron before he ever meets Starscream.
> 
> Since most of you are probably here from TF fandom, you can find a bit more about this setting [here](http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/planeswalkers-guide-khans-tarkir-part-1-2014-09-03). I've tried to hew pretty close to it but made a few modifications to that too.
> 
> This is not shippy, but I might be open to writing shippy stuff for these versions if people like it.
> 
> Thanks to [mllemusketeer](http://mllemusketeer.tumblr.com) for tons of useful info on snake biology, to [weallscreamforstarscream](http://weallscreamforstarscream.tumblr.com) for beta reading and suggestions on making things clearer for those not familiar with this 'verse, and to [leggystarscream](http://leggystarscream.tumblr.com) for beta reading and for the title suggestion.
> 
> There is now [fanart](http://doodlingadventures.tumblr.com/post/111590733690/thats-it-im-not-getting-frustrated-over-this) by [doodlingadventures](http://doodlingadventures.tumblr.com) for this fic, and it is amazing and I love it beyond words.

The room smelled of overripe fruit, human decay, and something thick and cloying that reminded Megatron of the lotus perfume. 

He smirked. The lotus perfume was a human weapon. No naga would stoop so low. Not when the snakes had mind-magic of their own to use.

He shouldn't have smiled. Impudence around nagas cost humans their lives.

Megatron grinned wider and blinked away the hazy lull of the perfume. 

The other humans could keep their fear, their cringing, their prostrations. Naga claimed to be kin to dragons, but what did that matter? All of the dragons were dead -- and not everything a snake said was true. 

No wonder the nagas preferred dead humans to live ones when most humans spent their lives cowering before them. 

This particular naga was no exception. Sibsig of all kinds surrounded him. Rotting human torsos held platters of fruit and meat in upturned hands. Bowls of incense and perfume rested atop unseeing severed heads. More intact undead, still in possession of most of their limbs, shambled around him, bringing him the gilded platters he could not reach. 

He did not allow the zombies to get close to him. When they came within arm's length, clawed hands shot out to snatch food from their platters. He lifted it to his mouth without bothering to look and ate. 

He stopped when he saw Megatron stare at him. His slitted eyes widened and his tongue darted out to taste the air. 

"Human," he said. He flicked his wrist, perhaps to beckon Megatron closer, perhaps to wave him away. 

Megatron stepped forward. “I have a name, Starscream. And you know it.” 

Starscream raised his head. Was he smiling? It was difficult to tell with nagas. “I might.” 

"Then there is no need for this game." 

He looked at Starscream. Most nagas were green, their scales bright to match the jungle surrounding their palaces. Starscream's were paler and grayer, an iridescent, silvery sheen making them glow almost metallic as he moved. 

The only other splash of color on his sinewy body were a few red patches just above where his hips might have been. A streak of red scales ran from between his eyes up to the top of his forehead, too bright to be a smear of human blood. 

"Game, Megatron?" 

"You pretending to ignore me because I am human.” 

Starscream laughed, a sibilant rasp. “Ignore you? No. But just because the other humans follow you doesn’t give a naga reason to listen. What would Sidisi say if you barged into her hall?” 

“She would kill me for daring to enter her palace. Or try.” 

“And you think you would survive a fight with the khan of our clan?” 

Megatron blinked again, willing away the perfume's lull, and grinned. “I would take the tip of her tail as a trophy.” 

Starscream snickered, but Megatron saw the slitted pupils widen, then narrow again. 

 _You know that I could do it, don’t you, snake?_  

He pointed at the tattoo on his chest. He usually kept his chest bare to show it off. Human or not, he was Sultai, and had as much right to wear the clan’s mark as any. The others needed to know that -- including the ever-growing group of humans that had come to follow him. 

There was, perhaps, a touch of vanity to it as well. Humans were weak, so the nagas said. What  better way to prove them wrong than to show off the strength he’d gained in the gladiator pits? 

And the crocodile pits. The nagas had tried to feed him to their beasts more than once. Sometimes his followers had fought back fiercely enough that the snakes had “reconsidered” their sentence for his crimes and let him go. 

And sometimes they’d thrown him in anyway, and he’d killed enough of their pets that they’d pulled him out again, afraid to lose too many of them. 

Some said he looked like a Jeskai monk, his chest hairless and the hair on his head close-cropped. But Jeskai shaved their heads completely bald, and no Jeskai would let an enemy come close enough to have so many scars. 

 _They would die if they did,_ Megatron thought, and sneered. 

And no Jeskai would carry so heavy a blade -- or one enchanted with the magic he preferred. 

But Starscream wouldn’t know that yet. He would taste the tang of the magic, as Megatron could smell the lotus perfume. But he wouldn’t know their nature. Not unless he knew who exactly they had come from. 

That was a thought. But not one worth pursuing for the moment. 

For now, all that mattered was his tattoo, a black dragon’s fang curling over his chest in a field of green and blue. No Jeskai would wear that. 

“We come from the same clan, Starscream,” he said. 

Starscream shook his head, still hissing in amusement. “And you think you and your pack of primates belong? We are the descendants of dragons. You --" He stopped. 

"We what, Starscream?" 

Starscream chuckled again, an uneasy sibilance. He waved a clawed hand at the sibsig shuffling around him and rotting on the ground. "Well. Look how most of you end up." 

Megatron's smile widened. _That's as good as a confession, naga._  

"End up? I thought being raised from the dead was supposed to be an honor. A rebirth that begins at death, like a naga shedding its old skin and going on renewed." 

"Well --" 

"Isn't that why Sidisi had me tossed into the crocodile pits? So they would devour me? So there wouldn’t be enough of me left to resurrect?” 

“Surely you realize I can’t speak for --” 

“To deny me the honor of the second skin?" 

He could smell the promise in the cloying perfume. Humans were born for toil and service in their first life, so the nagas said. Once they were raised -- 

Starscream dipped his head. "Well," he said again. "I can't speak for the other nagas. Especially our -- esteemed khan. But a beast as remarkable as yourself is surely worthy of --" 

"Of what, Starscream? Of this?" 

He closed his eyes and called the magic. 

It curled deep within him, an eldritch, chilling mist, frigid with the cold of death. He reached into its frozen core, drew it out, and opened his eyes. They glowed, misted in black and purple, and power wreathed his hands. He reached out for the nearest sibsig, a half-rotted creature with both its arms and legs intact. 

Wisps of the magic curled around it, and its eyes flared with violet flame. Glowing mist lit the spaces between its sinews. It moved to stand in front of Starscream with crisp, stiff movements, not at all like its usual shamble. 

Megatron nodded once. It reached down and picked up an overripe fruit from a platter resting on one of its limbless brothers’ heads. It straightened up with a sharp jerk and flung the fruit at Starscream’s head. 

Starscream yelped, a shrill sound Megatron wouldn’t have expected to hear a naga make. He reached a hand to his face and wiped a smear of juice from his sharp-boned cheek. 

“Why you --!” 

The coiled body darted forward, the speed of its motion pushing immobile sibsig aside and shoving others. It was a blur of shimmering silver-green, and instinct alone made Megatron leap into the corner of the room to avoid the striking fangs and swiping claws. 

He drew his sword, slashed at the coiling shape as Starscream collected himself. His blade, its steel blackened by dark magic, glowed purple with its thirst for blood. 

"I told you I would take Sidisi's tail-tip if she refused to hear me out," he snarled. "I will do the same to you if you do." 

Starscream snarled. 

"I assure you it will be painful. Even when you heal, the wound will fester, and no healing magic I have seen will fully cure the infection. You will live, but the scar will blacken and decay." 

Starscream shrieked and swiped out with his claws again. But he attacked Megatron's enchanted sibsig, not its master. Chunks of rotting flesh came away in Starscram's taloned hand. He dropped them to the polished floor, his pointed face twisting in disgust. 

The sibsig, still in the thrall of Megatron's magic, gave no reaction to its maiming. Starscream waved it away, but it did not obey his command. It stayed where it was, straight and still as stone. 

Starscream's tongue flicked out to taste the air around the sibsig. “Rakshasa magic," he whispered. "All of it." 

"Rakshasa magic," Megatron agreed, a smile curling his lips. 

For all his bravado, he felt drained. The death magic chilled him, left his insides numb. Hungry as a sibsig for the vital heat of the living. But his muscles felt like lead. 

He'd willed away the siren song of the lotus perfume before, and the thrill of impressing a naga had kept his mind too sharp for its hypnosis. But using his magic had exhausted him. The perfume sang to him, a lullaby of ease and rest. 

He snarled, shook his head, closed his eyes, shook his head. When he opened them again Starscream was staring at him, his eyes bright with hunger. 

He looked over at the sibsig, then down at the blackened blade. Then back into Megatron's purple-misted eyes. 

"Which of the rakshasa did you sell your soul to, little human? I hear Feyomsi teaches apes." 

"Unicron." 

The slitted pupils widened. 

So did Megatron's grin. He felt better already. "My sword is stained with his blood." 

"You'll pay a high price for that. Rakshasa do not offer their secrets cheap. Especially not that one." 

Megatron chuckled. "I am no more his slave than I am Sidisi's. I pierced his paw for the blood I needed." 

Starscream snickered.

"Are you really one to chide me, Starscream? You fill your hall with the lotus perfume like you hope I will succumb to it." 

Starscream hissed. His pupils narrowed. "That’s --" 

"Is your mind-magic really so weak?" 

Starscream dipped his scaled head in embarrassment. "Say instead that I -- see no reason to scorn a tool that might prove useful." 

"Very well." 

Starscream glared. His clawed hands twitched. 

Megatron held up a hand. "Easy, snake. I mean no insult. Your willingness to use any resource is exactly why I came to you." 

"Why you came to me?" 

"You are a naga. You are welcome in other nagas' company when humans are not. You know our khan better than I ever could. So tell me -- what is it that Sidisi wants?" 

"Power," Starscream answered without hesitation. 

Megatron nodded, still smiling. “Indeed. But what does she say she wants? What does she say will happen if we follow her? What grand destiny does she promise us?” 

Starscream’s lip twisted. Megatron was beginning to recognize it as a smirk. “Power, again. For all of us. All of Tarkir, united under Sultai rule.” 

Megatron swept a hand in front of his chest and nodded. “And is that what you want, Starscream?” 

“Of course. Would you leave Tarkir to Temur savages or Mardu Raiders?" 

“Or Jeskai monks. They at least might be clever about it.” 

Starscream’s pointed head wove closer. “Were you Jeskai?” 

“Don’t worry, Starscream. I have no loyalty to any clan but the one I was born into.” Megatron’s eyes swept over the room, the empty faces of the sibsig, the platters they carried, their rotting flesh. “And neither do my humans. A shame the nagas do not see that.” 

Starscream hissed and glared down at Megatron. “Your rulers, you mean.” 

“Do I? There are thousands of us, Starscream. The old magic is strong -- despite all attempts by you supposed dragon-kin to stamp it out. We have relearned our ancient skills --” 

“So you’re all in the thrall of rakshasa.” 

“There are other magics. Spells of healing and growth. And mind-magics, like your own. The magic that annoying perfume comes from, for one.” 

Starscream scowled.

“And even the death magics are not the province of rakshasa alone.” Megatron grinned and glanced over at the sibsig. He nodded to it, and it sat down, crossing its ruined legs. “My little demonstrations prove that.” 

“Until Unicron comes to take what’s his.” 

“Do you think I intend to make that easy?” 

Starscream’s tongue licked out. He did not answer. 

“Besides,” Megatron went on, “if we do make open war on the other clans, the rakshasa will consume half of Tarkir. They will have more souls to glut themselves on than they have since the days of the dragons.” 

"If you fail, it's your soul Unicron will devour. And if you succeed, it will give him all the more reason to want it. You're clever, Megatron. And fearless. But -- those things have destroyed stronger beings than humans." He slithered closer. "What reason would I have to take that risk?" 

Megatron held his blade aloft. It glowed purple in the dim light, the same color as the enspelled sibsig’s eyes. Tendrils of light reached out toward Starscream, hungry for his living essence. "I pierced Unicron's paw with this blade. Half the magic I took from him I stole." His grin matched Starscream's. "Do you really think I don't have a plan?" 

"You are mad," Starscream said. But he slithered closer. "But what exactly is it you’re proposing?” 

“Just this. Our khan dreams of ruling Tarkir. Of uniting it under her banner. And yet our own clan itself is divided. Humans slave under the rule of naga and rakshasa, too fearful to develop their magics or their might or their minds. When they die they serve in sibsig armies. If they are lucky.” 

He stepped toward a limbless sibsig whose head held a platter of fruit. It stared unseeing at him. He kicked it in the chest. Rotting flesh collapsed inward, exposing withered ribs. “If they are not, they work the mines or dredge the waters. Or become furniture in the halls of naga palaces.” He lifted his head to glare at Starscream. 

Starscream’s head dipped. “I don’t --” 

Megatron chuckled. “I’m not accusing you. I’m saying my humans are an army. Of gladiators, fighters, and mages. That with proper purpose, they might fight not only to their deaths, but see glory in fighting on after them. No fables about a second skin. Only loyalty to a clan worthy of their allegiance.” 

Starscream’s pupils widened. “A tool --” 

“-- That might prove useful,” Megatron finished. “I would see them rise. Earn what rank they truly deserve. And allowing them to try serves the interest of the clan. The _true_ interest of the clan -- not the foolish prejudice of those who fear what will happen if we reclaim our place.” 

“And you came to me because --” 

“Because I did not think you would spurn it. You want power. You don’t have it.” 

“And you’re offering yourselves to me.” 

“I’m not offering you anything, snake. Or anyone. My humans belong to themselves -- or to me, if anyone.” 

“And you?” 

“I belong to no one, naga.” 

Starscream raised his head to look at Megatron. The blotch of red on his forehead shone, a smear of something almost like blood. 

 _You want revenge on me already. But you’ll agree to my terms all the same._  

“We want the same thing,” Megatron said. “Sultai ascendancy. Without Sidisi’s face on it.” 

Starscream clenched a clawed fist. He bared his fangs, hissed, and withdrew them. “And you will help me to destroy her?” 

“I will help to ensure the rise of the Sultai. _All_ of the Sultai. Naga and humans alike. And any rakshasa who hunger for the souls of our enemies.” 

“And Sidisi --” 

“Is in my way. And yours. And only likely to get out of it when an army of sibsig drags her away.” 

His eyes gleamed again, purple mist wreathing them. Like a spark, the lavender light flickered in the zombies’ eyes. The zombies who could move pressed forward, surrounding Starscream in a circle of ruined human bodies. 

Starscream bent at his waist in a weaving bow. “Then -- you have a plan, Megatron? You will kill her for me?” 

Megatron smiled. “I have a plan. My scouts have seen Mardu movement on the outskirts of the jungle. We believe they are planning a raid.” 

“Yes, the naga have heard that too,” Starscream hissed. “Perhaps your spies are indeed more clever than our khan gives you credit for. 

Megatron ignored him. The time to bask in nagas’ praise was over. “Sibsig can drive back raiders easily enough. But winning Tarkir isn’t --” 

“-- Isn’t just about driving a few hordesmen away,” Starscream finished for him.

“Indeed.” 

“You mean to attack them.” 

“They expect a swarm of mindless undead and, perhaps, a few bored naga shooting arrows at them from the trees. Not an army of mages and fighters who know how to make war. Who heal themselves with magic or weave enchantments to deceive them.” 

The sibsig’s eyes glowed brighter. Megatron let them gleam for a moment and spoke again. “Or who can call on the power of death itself.” 

Starscream smirked. “You almost have me believing in humans.” 

“Almost is enough. If Sidisi is wise, and sees what is happening, that will serve my purposes well enough. For the moment. But even if she does, we will still need an ally among the naga. Or your kin might well turn on us after.” 

Megatron frowned. Starscream wouldn’t like hearing that. But Megatron needed to know how Starscream would respond. 

But the naga didn’t seem to have heard it. His pupils narrowed and widened again and his tongue flicked out as though tasting one of his fruits. “And if Sidisi doesn’t --” 

“If she doesn’t, she dies.” 

The hall filled with Starscream’s hissing laughter. He clenched clawed hands as though grasping at some prize. “And then --” 

“And then you get your chance to take what you want.” 

Megatron took a step forward. The toes of his boots nearly touched the scaled bulk coiled below Starscream’s abdomen. 

“If you think you can take it from us,” he said. 


End file.
